Page 72 of A Daring Desire

She laughed and went to him, sliding her arms around his waist and resting her head upon his shoulder. “Don’t be angry with her. I’m glad she told us. Papa has relented. He still doesn’t trust you, but he says he will give you a chance. We are invited to visit them at Dern.”

“How delightful,” he said dryly, putting his arms around her.

She looked up at him. “If you had a daughter who loved a man with your reputation, what would you do?”

He considered this. “I would have murdered me that day when I offered to marry you when you grew up, and saved a good deal of aggravation,” he said frankly.

Cat frowned and then laughed as she remembered the day, years ago. “I had forgotten that. As I remember, I accepted you.”

He stared down at her and stroked her cheek. “You did, and your father was close to murdering me, I assure you, but I promised him you were safe from me. He actually believed me, too.”

“Well, and that was true, wasn’t it? I know you would never hurt me, Ciarán. I trust you.”

She watched his face, saw her words ease the taut lines around his mouth. “I would rather die than hurt you,” he said, pulling her closer.

“I know.”

He leaned down and kissed her and she melted into his embrace. Cat brought one hand up to rest upon his chest and felt the crackle of paper in his breast pocket.

“The letter she returned to you,” she said, looking up at him. “May I?”

He rolled his eyes but took the letter out and handed it to her. “As you are so keen that there be no secrets between us. Behold my foolish young heart.”

Cat reached up and kissed him again. “Young, perhaps, honourable and ardent too, but not foolish.”

Carefully, she unfolded the well-worn letter and read the faded ink. By the time she had finished, she had to wipe her eyes on her sleeve as her handkerchief was already sodden.

He regarded her with a shake of his head. “I swear any other woman would be less than pleased to discover one of their husband’s old love letters.”

“You were just a boy,” Cat protested, sniffing. “Besides, I tossed all the new ones you were sent onto the fire once you’d gone to France, so I’m not so very different.”

He brightened at this. “You did?”

“Certainly, and I had better not receive any more, or I shall make you eat them,” she said tartly.

“Yes, little wife. I do believe you would, but you need not fear. The only letters I want are the ones you wrote me.” He tucked Louisa Clifford’s letter away and pulled her close against him.

“You kept them all,” she said smugly. “Berrycloth told me.”

“Yes, and now I come to think on it, you had quite a cosy little correspondence going between the two of you,” he said, a teasing note to his voice. “Ought I be jealous? Perhaps I should demand to read them all.”

“Well, in the first place, you can’t, because I did not keep all of Mr Berrycloth’s letters,” she said with dignity. “And in the second, he is head over ears for darling Perry, so stop trying to stir trouble where there is none.”

“You know about that?” he asked in surprise.

“Of course I know!” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not blind, and besides, Perry tells me everything.”

“You don’t mind in the least, do you?” he said with a smile, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Most people would call them degenerate, immoral. They would say it about me.”

“How can love ever be immoral?” she asked, staring at him in bewilderment.

He kissed her then, holding her so tight she could hardly breathe and then pressing kisses to her cheek, her jaw, down her throat. “Catherine, my love, my heart, I never dared dream of you. I did not believe such a woman could exist.”

She sighed happily, rejoicing under the touch of his lips and his sweet words, and only wishing that it were not such a long way home. He relented only when Brutus, deciding that Cat had received more than her fair of attention, nipped at his sleeve and bumped his head against Ciarán’s shoulder in protest.

“Sorry, sorry, I know you are there, my fine fellow,” Ciarán said with a laugh, scratching the big horse in a spot behind its ears that made it close its eyes with a blissful sigh.

“Oh, drat. We’ve missed the train,” Cat said in dismay, realising how dark it had become. “Oh, Ciarán, and I so want to be at home with you.”